This invention relates generally to a system and method for managing the development of various different types of content wherein the development of the content includes finding leads to content, developing the content and publishing the content in one or more different forms. In more detail, the content developed using the system may include written content, such as success stories, stories, articles, advertisements, auditory content, such as radio spots, radio advertisements, radio presentations, electronic downloaded auditory content, audiovisual content that combines audible content and written content as well as visual content including video. In the preferred embodiment described below, the content development system is described with an example of the workflow associated with a story and in particular to a system and method for managing the workflow associated with the preparation, editing and creation of a story, but the invention is not limited to a story workflow management system.
In a typical environment in which content is being developed, there is a content development process with various steps which must be completed in order to generate the particular content. For example, there may be the step of developing the leads and information that will be needed to generate a new piece of content, such as when trying to write a news-story, the step of reviewing the lead to determine the quality of the lead, the step of assigning an approved lead to a particular content person to develop and edit the lead to generate the content, the step of following up with the content developer and editor to complete the draft and final version of the content within a particular period of time, the step of client and featuree approval of the content and the step of publishing the content. Thus, the content development process is typically very cumbersome and slow. Often, the steps are managed by a human being and each step must typically be performed in a sequential manner.
For example, in a typical environment in which a piece of content may be created, such as a newspaper, a television newscast or a cable service, the management of the workflow associated with the creation of a story is very difficult. In particular, the creation of a story may include receiving a submission for a new story, rating the story idea, checking the story""s facts, writing the story and preparing the story for publishing. In the past, each step of the process was completed by one or more different people, but no one was easily able to monitor the entire story workflow process to make sure it was completed. Therefore, it is difficult to ensure that the entire process was completed correctly and that each step was in fact completed. It is also difficult for a person trying to manage the story workflow to ensure each step is being completed in a timely manner. It is also difficult to ensure that each story being generated is factually accurate. Finally, it is also difficult to implement a quality control process due to the large number of steps in the process, the large number of people involved in the process, the large number of variables that affect the process and the large number of sign-offs involved in the process.
For a company which generates success stories about its products, the story workflow management process is equally complex. In this process, it is necessary to screen incoming success story leads and interviews to remove the unwanted leads and interviews and determine if the story is worth pursing. Then, it is necessary to check the lead and interview""s accuracy and, if they are found to be accurate, the writing of the success story must be assigned to a writer. The writer then has to check all the facts (i.e. find the person, get the story and quotes, conduct the interview, get the appropriate releases, get images and other media as required, have those media prepared for publication, etc.), write the story and get everybody to sign off on what""s been done. Once the writer has completed the story, it must be edited and prepared for publication. In a typical success story creation process within a corporation, the leads for success stories are difficult to obtain. In particular, it is typically necessary to disturb the salespeople in order to generate any leads for success stories since the salespeople have the most contact with people who may have success stories with the products made by the corporation. Often, the person administering the success story creation process must provide the salespeople with an incentive, such as a cash bonus or some other material prize, in order to receive any success story leads or submissions. The management of the success story process is often done manually which is a daunting task since the process is extremely complex and has many imponderables. The manual management of the process leads to inconsistent quality stories, slower generation of stories and unpredictable results since the results depend on the particular person.
Some typical systems attempt to automate the process in some manner. However, these systems are typically disparate pieces of technology that have been put together in an attempt to automate the process. For example, a typical database may be combined with a interface which is not intended for that database. It is desirable to provide a content development and management system wherein the system is homogeneous in that each portion of the system is designed and intended to work together.
Corporations which have success story programs also find it immensely difficult to ensure that stories are currently maintained up to date and accurate (i.e., the featured party is still using the same products and the same people are still with the company, etc.). It is staggering to discover how many of the success stories that a company uses are actually obsolete. In addition, because the success story creation work is done in an artisanal manner right now, it""s also difficult, time consuming (i.e. expensive) to get the story done in multiple media (print, web) in a useful time frame. It is also extremely difficult for companies to ensure that their people can quickly find a relevant success story when they need one. In addition, because the stories usually take months from inception to delivery of a usable story, their shelf life (before they become obsolete) is much shorter.
Many companies already have a success story program. In one type of success story program, one or more people in the organization are assigned to find and develop leads and turn them into stories. These people usually have one or more other assigned tasks which are their primary responsibility, and usually lack training in the skills required to do success stories. The results of this type of success story program is slow story turnaround, poor quality stories, few and often outdated stories, poor legal documentation and high hidden costs. For example, the stories are also generally handled at a divisional or department level and therefore never centralized in a useful manner so that duplication exists between the different departments, the quality of the stories may not be consistent between the departments and can be generally of lower quality and customers may become annoyed in that the same customer may be contacted by two different departments for the same story. In another success story program, the persons assigned to find and develop leads and turn them into stories bring in one or more outside contractors, such as individual freelancer writers, PR companies, or the like. Companies consistently find the turnaround slow, quality very variable and cost high because the process always tends to be that of a craftsman working on a very limited number of leads assigned by the project manager at the company. As a result, there is often very little filtering of mediocre leads and interviews since there are not enough story leads.
It is desirable, however, to provide a content development management system and method which automatically tracks each step of the content development process and documents the steps as the content is being generated regardless of who or how many people complete a particular task and therefore permits the story workflow to be more easily controlled. It is also desirable to provide a content development management system which permits the various process steps to be completed in a non-sequential manner in that the steps do not necessarily need to be completed in a sequential manner and the cost of implementation is lower and faster. It is also desirable to provide content outputs that are flexible and highly customizable, a search capability within the content system and a mechanism for updating and maintaining content. Thus, it is desirable to provide a content development management system which avoid the above problems with the typical content development processes and story creation processes and it is to this end that the present invention is directed.
The content development management system and method in accordance with the invention provides many features and advantages that provide for an efficient, automatic content development and management system. For example, the system may automatically manage the content development process. The system is very flexible and extensible and expandable. The system also provides billing and cost control mechanisms, quality control of the content since it can be checked at each portion of the development process. The system also provides lead management, production management and scheduling of the tasks associated with the content development process. The system also includes a review process during which the people involved with the content approve the content in an environment that encourages rapid approval of the content. The system may also include a search mechanism that permits a user to search the content generating and management process. The system may also include the ability to update and maintain content so that the system may, for example, automatically remind the editor that a story has been published for a predetermined period of time so that the editor can check the content and update it as needed.
The content development and management system provides core data storage. In more detail, the system tracks all of the data associated with the content within the system. Thus, all of the data associated with the content is never lost. In addition, the data for a particular piece of content is kept together. In a preferred embodiment, the system may be object based and may contain one or more modules that can be interchanged depending on the needs of the particular client of the system.
Thus, in accordance with the invention, a story workflow management system and method are provided in which each step of the story creation process from initial lead generation to final publication of the story is tracked so that the entire story creation process is more easily managed. The system integrates the various story creation processes into a single controlled process. The system permits the traditional story generation process to be automated and the speed of the story generation increased while the quality control for the stories is also increased. The integrated system provides various advantages to the story creation process including reduced costs to create a story, increased speed with which a story is prepared, and various features not typically available to a story writer and story editor. The system is also robust, compatible with other existing systems and networks and is very flexible.
In the success story embodiment or any other embodiment, the end users may submit story leads and interviews to the system about particular products and the system may provide a mechanism for processing the incoming lead and interviews information in an efficient manner. The system may store unformatted story contents so that the published story may be quickly published automatically by the system in a variety of different formats, such as XML, ASCII, a hardcopy of the story, a Postscript Display Format/Portable Document Format (PDF) file, any web format and the like and on a variety of different media, such as CD-ROM, DVD, FLASH memory and the like. The system may also permit story leads and interviews to be tracked so that a lead for a new story is not lost. The system also may be easily integrated into a corporate Intranet computer network and with other prior legacy databases. The system may also gather together the success stories spread throughout a corporation. The system may also provide tiered security access levels to the system that is individualized. The system may also track different versions of a story and provide redlining capabilities.
The system also allows for more time and space flexibility for everybody in the process since the story creation is not constrained by location or time (i.e., everybody can work on it from anywhere at any time). The system also reduces the dependency on any one individual because this is a formalized system and the steps are defined and documented so that less skilled people may accomplish the same tasks typically completed by a more skilled person. The system is also easy scaled in size to increase the number of stories being created, the number of people working on the stories and the number of people involved in the production of the stories. The system also accumulates a central knowledge base for continually improving the story creation process based on ongoing experiences. In addition, since the system may track visitors through the integrated web system, the system may track the visitor""s interests and preferences and provide feedback to our customers which allows them to tune their marketing and products. The system permits a large number of story leads and interviews to be generated so that the best stories (high quality control) may be picked from the lead and interviews to create the stories. In essence, the system performs a funneling of the leads wherein a large number of leads and interviews leads to a smaller number of good pieces of content.
The system may include a novel database structure that permits the content to be tracked and stored in a logical manner. The database may include story threads which include information about a particular story. The database may also include one or more workthreads for each story wherein each workthread contains information about different generations of the story (e.g., a 400 word version of the story, an internal generation of the story and an XML generation of the story). Thus, the system permits various different generations of the content to be logically stored so that any of the generations can be easily retrieved.
In more detail, the system may include a server which is executing one or more software applications which implement various steps in the story creation process. The software applications may include lead and interview applications or interfaces for accepting leads, lead reviews and interviews, for managing the story lead and interview process, a writer application or function for managing the story rating and story creation process, an administrative application or function for controlling the access to the system and editorial review as well as managing and maintaining the data contained in the database space, and a publisher application for generating a published story in a variety of different formats. The system may also include a database for storing information about each lead and interview and each completed story workthread. The database permits the content to be updated as needed which reduces the costs associated with producing and maintaining the finished content. The administrative system provides an overview of the system for an administrator, allows control of certain system data, controls the user permissions to access particular data so that different people who access the system may be able to view different information about the stories being prepared based on the privileges given to the person. For example, a particular corporation may view only the stories pertaining to that particular corporation while the system may actually be generating stories for multiple corporations. To manage the multiple tiers of access to the information in the system, the system may include an access information database containing information about the web pages/information available in the system for each user of the system. The database may also include each different access level in the system and what web pages each different user may view. For example, a person submitting a story may only access and view the lead and interview web pages while an editor may view all of the current stories being processed and their progress towards completion.
The system may have a user interface which is generated to provide users of the system, including story submitters, story researchers, story writers, story editors, system administrators, system customers, sub-contractors, partners and others, with guidance through the process. In one World Wide Web (WWW) based embodiment, one or more web pages are generated as the user interface. The system may generate these user interface screens dynamically as each user accesses the system. In particular, each user accessing the system may have a predetermined security level based on the user""s intended use of the system. Based on the predetermined security level, pieces of data are retrieved from a database and the user interface for the particular user is generated based on the retrieved data. Thus, each user only views the data in the user interface screen which the user has the privileges to view to provide security for the stories being generated. Additionally, the user interface screens in the system are customizable to integrate seamlessly with the current look and feel of a customer""s web site, for example, so that not only can different content be made accessible to different users based on the access privileges, but different versions of the same content as well as different presentations of that content may be provided to different users.
To generate leads for possible stories, the system may receive a lead through the lead and interview system. In addition, the system may include a pre-qualification system for finding and generating leads and following up on the leads to have them pre-qualified (i.e., determine that the story is valuable and should be created. Once the stories have passed this pre-qualification, the system requests an interview from the featured person, and this interview is matched with the data from the pre-qualification and tracking system. This integrated pre-qualification and tracking system is valuable to clients because it provides their project managers with a simple of generating leads and ensuring that leads don""t fall through the cracks once they have signed off on them. Thus, data associated with the content is never lost and can be easily retrieved.
The system may include a placement management system wherein the content generated by the system may be placed in appropriate media or locations. The system may also include a writer management mechanism that permits the system to qualify a writer, editor, etc. for working and then manage the writer, editor, etc. payment process. The system may also include a user interface customization system wherein the screens and user interfaces for each editor and writer and other users of the system can be customized. The system may also include a digital rights management mechanism or it may be integrated with any well known digital rights management system. The system is individualizable to each user and can be upgraded to add new clients and new writers.